Cruising through the Colourful Caribbean to World Rally's Finish!

Bright white smiles and radiantly painted houses make the West Indies seem so cheerful and welcoming. Life is simply lived here, especially in the smaller islands that we visited after leaving Grenada. Our first week was spent in Port Louis Marina, Grenada, where we enjoyed chilling, or to use the vernacular, “liming”. This is another skill that the locals are very good at; many years ago while in St Lucia, we were told by our taxi driver” Don’t rush, we’re not in Russia! If you rush, you have ugly children!” A maxim we have tried to bear in mind during this trip, but only now being fully implemented. Once all the boats had arrived in Grenada and finished the final ocean leg with the World Arc Rally, we went on a short tour of the island.

We visited a tiny chocolate producer, one of several on the island and were shown the spice trees for which the island is renowned; nutmeg and cinnamon. Grenada has the accolade of being the country producing "more spice per square mile", as it says in the brochure. On top of the hill sits the imposing Fort Frederick, one of several forts on the island! The colonial nature of the island was evident in eighteenth century architecture that defines the capital city of St George, where we had an excellent Jerk fish lunch with rice and peas and hot chilli sauce.

Up in the hills we found friendly Mona monkeys by Grand Etang lake and Richard and I jumped into the pool at Annandale waterfalls replicating a photo I took of our young children in the same mid air pose back in 2008. We are very lucky to have previously spent several months in this wonderful part of the world so that it feels familiar to us and after ten months of travelling we have finally stopped rushing!

Port Louis marina was the perfect place to host and attend sundowner parties on our boats in the evening and we drank Pina Coladas by the pool in the afternoon, we even went ten pin bowling at Spice Island Mall. Our end of leg party was the final opportunity to hand over the “jackets “ which are passed on from boat to boat in recognition of special achievements on the ocean legs. The crew of Celtic Star were in possession of two jackets. One from our pre Covid rally which finished in Tahiti and fondly known as “Sailors of the Lost Arc”. This jacket was awarded to us in St Helena from our original gang for making it that far against a lot of odds. We awarded it in turn to Amazing Grace for managing their challenging passage from Brazil without an autohelm, hand steering for 5 days. The current rally jacket, WARC 22, was awarded to us in Salvador for the altruistic act of lending another boat our spare Genoa sail in St Helena, which we will get back in St Lucia, where we finally celebrate completion of our circumnavigation. We awarded this jacket to Peter and Nicky on Chanto, who sailed the challenging 11 day passage from Brazil to Grenada, double handed, and also had problems with their auto helm. It was a fun evening, we drank, ate, danced and partied, aware that the end of our time together was in sight and feeling slightly like 6th formers who can’t wait to leave school but suddenly realise that a significant era in our lives will be over and that our close knit travelling community forged over the last few months will split up. Some people we will keep close contact with and some we may never meet again!

Socialising done, we were ready to go out to anchor for chilling, snorkelling, reading and recovery. Firstly, we needed to buy a new tender, which is a small boat used for transporting crew and supplies from the big boat to shore or other destinations. After eleven years as official dinghy to Celtic Cruising the PVC material had given up and was no longer repairable. Sixteen months rolled up under Celtic Star in Apataki, French Polynesia, probably didn’t improve it's condition either. This was a big expenditure at a late stage in our trip, but absolutely essential for cruising life.

After finally leaving the marina on Friday 24th March we motored for a couple of miles to an anchorage near the underwater sculpture park at Grand Mal, on the west coast. This was our opportunity to inflate the new dinghy and test drive it to the sculptures where we spent an hour snorkelling before snoozing in the cockpit followed by a lovely quiet night in. The following day we managed a short upwind sail to Isle de Ronde on the way to Carriacou, where we anchored for one night, pleasantly removed from civilisation. On the way, we were careful to avoid the active underwater volcano called Kicking Jenny, which has an exclusion zone between 1.5 and 5 Kms around it, depending on how active it is. More activity means more gas bubbles which changes the density of the sea and decreases the bouyancy of boats, so they sink. There was a theory that this was what caused the number of unexplained disappearances of boats in the Bermuda Triangle, but I don’t know if it was proved. We actually saw the gas bubbles rising from a fault line running from the volcano when we were diving off Carriacou!

Carriacou, means island of reefs and has a population of 8,000 in 13 square miles. The French first settled these islands and some of the names of places remain French even after the British took over. However, the tiny hamlet called Windward was named as it is on the windward coast. Windward remains a centre of traditional wooden boat building and has a number of colourful houses scattered in a picturesque setting of mangroves, white beaches and a turtle sanctuary, plus a branch of M&S!

The people were wonderfully friendly, the island undeveloped and so we stopped in the same anchorage in Hillsborough Bay for four nights. On our first shore side exploration we ate a delicious lunch at a small restaurant on the beach called La Playa. There wasn’t a dinghy dock and we were out of practice at landing the dinghy in the surf so I got rather wet, but with temperatures in the high 20’s and wearing shorts and a light top I soon dried out. The following night there was a band playing and Richard joined in on a few numbers, our good friends on Amazing Grace and Island Wanderer had arrived in the bay that day so they joined us for a pleasant evening of music and dancing.

Richard and I explored the island of Carriacou by taking the local public transport. These are mini buses which have official numbers, flexible routes and are a wonderful window into local life. Packages are picked up and delivered along the route, one woman dropped her two young children at day care, the bus waited for the few minutes it took, then she got off at the following stop and went into the local school, presumably to work there. Folks met on the bus, went to work or visiting and the driver would hoot as he drove through or detour to stop on a side road before doubling back. We also used one of the local boat taxis to take us to Tim’s BBQ at Anse le Roche. This picture perfect beach rimmed with dense green vegetation is a turtle beach, so Tim was not allowed to sell beer with crown caps, forcing us to drink cocktails! Here we sat at a large table under a palm leaf shelter and were served tuna, lobster and chicken with rice and salad. What a life!

Carriacou is part of Grenada and as we headed north to St Vincent and the Grenadines we were required to check out of customs and immigration in the next bay over called Tyrell Bay. This required another adventure and tour on the bus before we sailed nine miles to Union Island. Union is only 3 miles long and a mile wide with a population of 3000, but it housed the Customs Office at the pretty and colourful town of Clifton, where we cleared in. A boat man took our lines and we paid him for the mooring ball and also for a Mahi Mahi which he cleaned and filleted.

We needed to get our propane gas bottle refilled and another guy coincidentally called Carwyn, the same as our daughter Laura’s partner, offered to take it ashore for us. It turned out he did gas and ganga delivery, but we settled with just the gas, plus a scrumptious banana cake offered by another boat. The men on these boats make their living by providing anything you need! Once we had cleared in, we headed to Happy Island in our dinghy. This is a unique island home built from conch shells in 2005, and was just a shack when we first visited in 2008, but has upgraded and extended over the years. Documented and published dangers of cruising in the Caribbean are the reefs, rocks and the Rum Punch! In this instance it was a cocktail called Pain Killa, so strong that one was enough for me! And so it went on. Another day, another beer in a beach bar, or a delightful lunch at Sparrows Beach resort where the Smoked Marlin was delicious.

On the way there we walked past a salt pool with bird observation point and were interested to find many of the birds we see on our Welsh coast also live here. Our next stop was at the tiny island of Mayreau, where we hosted lunch aboard for our friends and served the Mahi Mahi we had bought dressed with Sauce Vierge, accompanied by rice and vegetables plus flambéed pineapple to finish. After playing Taboo and other card games we all went ashore to Rasta Righteous Robert’s bar where we drank with the locals who played drums and sang and Richard joined in on his harmonica.

The Tobago Cays are a small group of uninhabited tiny islands forming a turtle sanctuary and are protected from the ocean by the Horseshoe and Worlds End Reef. Snorkelling and diving here is supreme. The turquoise water has a luminous quality and the reef is a beautiful kaleidoscope of gold, brown, green and blue colours which are unique and beautiful. We saw numerous multi coloured fish, green turtles, eagle and sting rays plus a multitude of corals and sea fans.

However, it was the start of Easter break and the number of boats, ships and cruisers increased until the anchorage behind the reef seemed as full as a car park, so we moved to anchor behind a small island called Petit Rameau which was more convenient for the beach barbecue we went to in the evening. Being a popular spot most of the WARC boats had arrived at the Cays and we had a pleasant reunion with some of the crews.

Our next hop was through the North Channel between the Baleine rocks and Horseshoe reef to Canouan, where we spent a relaxed 24 hours in a more secluded bay.

We continued on to Bequai where we were able to check out of St Vincent. Here there was a beach birthday party and another round of beach bars and restaurants to explore, a birthday party, superb diving and an afternoon playing bridge onboard Amazing Grace.

On Easter Sunday, 9th April 2023 we headed north to St Lucia and at 0900 hrs crossed our 2019 wake as we sailed past Youngs Cut where we spent Christmas with our family before we set off on our rally. We sailed on past St Vincent, green and mountainous and marvelled at the pyroclastic flows from the 2021 volcanic eruption in the north. It took about 4 hours to cross the 30 miles between the islands and when we spotted the Pitons it felt momentous. These iconic volcanic peaks welcomed us back to St Lucia after 3 years and was the most emotional moment for me.

" WOO HOO HOO!!! WE HAVE SAILED ALL THE WAY AROUND THE WORLD!!"

We arrived in St. Lucia late on Sunday 9th April and moored between the Pitons where contrary to our plan for a quiet, inexpensive, alcohol free night on board the need to celebrate our awesome achievement became paramount. So we went ashore to Sugar Beach Resort and thoroughly enjoyed a fabulous, though eye wateringly expensive dinner with fine wine and danced to a band at the swanky Sugar Beach Resort nestled between the Pitons.

The following day we collected Anna from the airport and it was wonderful to be reunited after a year. We spent a few delightful days at anchor before arriving in the beautiful hurricane hole called Marigot Bay for our final rendezvous with the World Arc Fleet 2019 to 2023. This was where the original Dr Dolittle was filmed and we ate out at the restaurant of that name.

Parties continued with nights out and a final karaoke night on board the biggest boat in the fleet, a 67 feet long catamaran called Nakula. Then it was time for the boats to process the short distance northwards to Rodney Bay with a detour around the bay outside the capital town Castries. The seven boats were dressed with flags and we travelled in a convoy with the smallest boat leading. So, proudly Celtic Star led the fleet across the finish line and into Rodney Bay marina for a steel band welcome and our final dinner and presentations. There is drone photography and official photography which I will post in my next blog, but her we are alongside in Rodney Bay Marina at 1300hours on Saturday 15th April 2023.

Tomorrow we start our journey homewards via Antigua and the Azores and hope to arrive back in North Wales in the middle of June. We will keep you posted on arrival date and party plans! Circumnavigators!